


Where the Hare Sleeps

by celestialskiff



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Aging, Angst, Cunnilingus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Intimacy, Magic, Massage, Menstrual Sex, Outdoor Sex, Ritual Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:57:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: She was invisible, erased by the Cut-Wife's fingers. She didn't mind: she listened to the movement of grasshoppers, the swish of long grass. A wren singing.Vanessa Ives and Joan Clayton both know they don't have long together. They seek what solace they can.





	Where the Hare Sleeps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



> Thanks to capeofstorm for the beta. Please heed the tags.

Vanessa lay on her back by the fire. She wanted to get up, but an invisible hand pressed her to the hearthstones. Her mind was hazy. 

Rain spattered the tiny windows, the charms turned on their threads. Some were silent, some spoke to her in clear, precise musical notes. She was tired: tired as she was stubborn. This was not the life she had been groomed for. She hadn't even been taught to put up her own hair. But it was a life she understood. 

“Lazy,” the old woman said, digging at Vanessa with her toe. She sat by the fire, darning a rough wool sock, stretching the thread over the wooden mushroom. Her fingers were deft, quick, seemed untouched by arthritis or cold. 

Unlike Vanessa's – her hands, the hands that had once been so neat, so white, were chapped over the knuckles, chilblains on most of her fingers. She stretched them, feeling the strange tautness of the skin. 

“Goose-grease,” the Cut-Wife said, watching her. “That'll soften your hands.” 

Vanessa hadn't spoken in so long that her voice felt far away. She coughed. “Where is it?” 

“Don't have any geese, girl. Go and find some, then I'll show you how to render the fat.” The old woman laughed. 

Vanessa turned her face to the fire, watching the flames leap and sputter. “No.” 

“Lazy.” The Cut-Wife dug at her ribs with her toe again, as she might poke a sleeping dog. But it felt companionable, almost tender. 

A gust of wind sent a handful of cinders into the room, and smoke. It did not feel like late spring. Vanessa tasted smoke on her lips, and her throat tightened. For a moment saw flames against a black sky, pale eyes in a glowing face. She rubbed her mouth. 

She wanted to get up, to sweep the room and begin the supper, but her body was clamped by a terrible apathy. It happened, sometimes. She rolled her hips, but couldn't pull herself up. 

“It's not a curse,” the Cut-Wife said, watching her. “It's the melancholy spirit.” 

The hearth-stones pressed into her back. She could see the Cut-Wife's face from upside-down, the bright, mismatched eyes, the unruly hair. The room tasted smoky still, the wind rattled the windows. 

She could not trust her visions. She could not believe that the Cut-Wife would end in fire. Visions were twisted, disjointed things, not really belonging to her. 

“Tell me one of your saucy stories,” the old woman said, turning her darning. “The relations you watched fuck.” 

“I will not,” Vanessa snapped. 

“Or about your pretty girl, the one that wants saving.” The Cut-Wife's voice grew lower, almost wheedling. “She must be very lovely, with her cream skin and her curls. Did you seduce her? Did you open her bodice and touch your lips to her breast? Say, 'One kiss, darling, so I know how you taste.'” She coughed, and embers moved in the hearth. “Or were you savage, eh? I can see you being savage, no restraint. Ripping her dress, biting her flesh because you loved her so much, didn't you? You needed to taste the red heat of her?” 

Vanessa was flushing to the roots of her hair. “Enough of this,” she said, pulling herself up. Ghastly woman. She would chop the onions until her eyes were so filmed with tears she couldn't see. She would chop her damn fingers off and it would serve them both right, for their filthy, filthy desires… 

The Cut-Wife was laughing. “Got you up, didn't I?” 

* 

“Your pretty cunt too good for this, hm?” the old woman said. It was sunny for once: she was drawing circles in the limestones soil around the house. Circle after circle, some interlocking, some free. “I've already tasted it, you remember. There are no surprises.” 

“I'd rather do it inside,” Vanessa said, shading her eyes to gauge the sun's position. She remembered the Cut-Wife's rough fingers inside her, touching her before she even greeted her, there in the rain by her windswept house. The terrible intimacy. 

“You'd rather, eh. You'd rather. You think that matters to them as listens to these words?” 

“What do the circles mean?” Vanessa could smell wood-smoke on the air, and newly-turned earth. Far away, the high, summer sound of a buzzard's call. 

“We make them for protection. Some of them work, some of them don't. A little touch of cunt helps. Grounding. The womb always offers succour to them as knows how to ask.” 

“Use yours, then.” 

The Cut-Wife stood up, straightening her back painfully. She grimaced at Vanessa. “They're used to mine,” she said. “Who are you to argue with me, girl?” 

Vanessa's gut clenched. She was menstruating, the blood dark and constant, the first day of the flow. Her face pale, her thighs shaky. Sweat began at her hairline, crept behind her ears. 

“You think I don't know you're bleeding?” the Cut-Wife asked, hands on hips. 

“Shouldn't we do it at night?” Vanessa suggested. “It's a full moon.” 

The circles were insignificant on the ground. Barely visible. More importantly, anyone could tramp up the path past the solitary cottage. Vanessa needed moments of magic to feel potent with meaning. This felt about as potent as a lifting potatoes from the soil. 

“For goodness sake, girl. You'd think I was asking you to do something difficult. How can you be coy now, when you've fucked a demon?”

Vanessa's face coloured. She didn't want it said, and certainly not so baldly. But the old woman had no scruples: she'd stuck her fingers inside Vanessa, farther in than her cunt. She'd scratched along the edges of Vanessa's soul. She knew everything. 

And still she treated Vanessa with something like kindness. 

Vanessa gritted her teeth. “Where do you want me?” 

“On your back, legs up. What do you think?” 

Vanessa hiked up the old brown skirt, the tattered chemise. The uneven ground pressed into her back, long grass tickling her neck and chin. She felt like a hare, crouching in the long grass, alert, ears twitching. 

Without ceremony, the Cut-Wife pulled aside the rag into which Vanessa had been bleeding. She shifted the chemise up, above Vanessa's bottom. The grass was cool under Vanessa's buttocks. She looked up at the sky – the wispy mare's tails, the expanse of blue. 

“Good girl,” the Cut-Wife said, patting her thigh. She rubbed her fingers over Vanessa's cunt, and stood to spatter the blood she'd gathered onto the ground. 

She repeated this process over and over, until Vanessa felt like a painter's palette, a simple receptacle for the Cut-Wife's paint. She was invisible, erased by the Cut-Wife's fingers. She found she didn't mind: she listened to the movement of grasshoppers, the swish of long grass. A wren singing. 

Her attention was drawn again and again to her vulva, even as she tried to turn her mind away. She felt like she was becoming the heat of her cunt, like a wild creature in rut. She wanted to speak, but found no words. 

Her womb clenched, her vulva hot and stimulated by the Cut-Wife's repeated touch. Her skin tingled in the warm air, a fly crawled over her knee. 

Without thinking, she rubbed her fingers against her vulva, soothing the hot ache. Disoriented – the faint clouds turned into arcane runes, the blue sky seemed to whisper. She pulled her fingers away, and saw them streaky with blood. 

It would dry on her fingers, settle around the nails and into the whirls of skin. She brought them to her mouth, and the Cut-Wife saw, and laughed. 

“Bring yourself off,” she said. “It'll only help.” 

Vanessa bit her lip. Suddenly she wanted to touch herself – she felt liminal, existing outside of everything but the Cut-Wife's sarcastic presence, indulging in childish passions. She wanted the mismatched eyes watching as she fingered herself, that feeling of utter indecency. 

“You need me to guide you for that too, girl?” the old woman said. She snorted. “Helpless child.” 

But it wasn't really chastisement, and she wasn't annoyed. Vanessa saw that suddenly. She was keenly interested in Vanessa's fingers, in Vanessa's vulva. It had been a long time since anyone had been willingly open for the Cut-Wife. Not asking for a foetus to be tugged from her womb. Asking for nothing – simply giving. 

The Cut-Wife squatted in front of her. “This is what they imagine we do, you know. Fuck each other in the woods. Dance naked.” 

“It sounds pleasant,” Vanessa said, her mouth dry. The Cut-Wife laughed. 

Her warm hands traced Vanessa's thighs. Vanessa leant up on her elbows to look at her properly. The old woman's fingers were damp already with menstrual fluid, her eyes focused and intent. 

“Is this really going to aid the protection of the house?” Vanessa asked. 

“Possibly. There's a lot of power in you, girl, for all your bring trouble down with you.” A thumb traced over her clitoris, rubbed hard, once, twice. The Cut-Wife sucked the thumb thoughtfully, like she was sampling a herb. “Been a long time since this earth tasted monthly blood.” 

Vanessa's muscles tightened at the Cut-Wife's touch. _Again_ , she wanted to say. _Again._

Strong fingers circled her labia, her clitoris, touched the edges of her vagina. Vanessa drew in a quick breath. Suddenly, she felt a tightening of her skin, a sense of something outside herself. Not a human, not an animal. The sense of the air listening to her, or the earth. The tug of something beyond herself. Somewhere, something began to pay attention.

She listened. Her skin hot, tingling; the Cut-Wife's fingers firm, ungentle, urgent. The presence caressed her – it did not feel malevolent. It didn't feel like anything she knew. Perhaps it was the magic of the Cut-Wife, blunt and honest and pure. 

“Harder,” Vanessa said, throwing her head back. “Your fingers in me. Please.” 

The Cut-Wife snorted. “Eager now, aren't you, girl.” But the fingers dived inside, and Vanessa arched around them. She was wet with blood, with the glistening menstrual fluid, and she felt she could have accommodated anything. Her abdomen no longer hurt: she was strong, trembling with power. 

The fingers moved fast inside her. Vanessa raised her hips off the ground, arching to meet the Cut-Wife's hand, again and again, throwing her head back. She felt that she was of the earth, of the air, belonging to this place, letting it inside her, letting it touch and taste and smell her. It drew her in, she drew it in, they spoke to one another. And her blood, her blood touched the ground, a gift freely given, bringing together all that was sacred. 

Her orgasm, when it came, was a gift, a wave of pleasure that flowed through her and back out into the air and earth. She made no sound, but her muscles tensed, tensed, as though she was trying to draw the Cut-Wife inside herself. 

She felt hollowed, raw, when the Cut-Wife withdrew her hand. She wanted her to remain, her heat a living thing inside Vanessa. 

“See what I mean, girl? They like it now. They like it in the sunlight, they like the sweet taste of your cunt.” 

Vanessa met the Cut-Wife's eyes. “So do you.” 

* 

Vanessa slept badly, and so did the Cut-Wife. They often met at the over-scrubbed table, the house dim, flickering with shadows cast by a single candle. They rarely spoke, and rarely bothered to rake up the fire and boil tea. They sat, terribly alone, but their aloneness blunted by the other's presence. 

On cloudless nights, the sky was very bright, but most nights were clouded and mild. Vanessa wore layers of clothes, and still shivered, and the old woman sat in a blanket, bleary-eyed. 

Vanessa recognised the Cut-Wife was in pain from the way she breathed. Since she had first touched the old woman and learnt where she had got her scar, she had come to know how the woman was feeling without being told. Vanessa didn't say anything about it, but she knew the old scar hurt her, and her hips ached, her knees. There was a new pain in her kidneys she tried not to think about. 

The Cut-Wife kept her back very straight, her fingers steady. Her willpower held her together. Vanessa had thought she knew about willpower: willpower had conquered the demons in her mind, had driven her here. But she was feeble in comparison. 

This night, the Cut-Wife's breath was slow, easier than some. She looked at the shadows, her hand on an unopened book. 

“Shall I read to you?” Vanessa offered, not relishing the thought of pouring over 18th century print by the light of a single candle, but willing. 

“This book?” the Cut-Wife snorted. “It's not for reading casually, girl. None of my books are. Approach them only in times of need.” 

“Are you in need?” 

“You know something is coming. You know what forces circle this house.” 

Vanessa nodded, chastened. 

The Cut-Wife sucked her teeth, hand still resting on the book. The candle guttered but did not die. “You could ease my back,” she said, after a time. Her voice was harsh, but Vanessa could tell it was a request, not a command. “Smooth out some of the aches with your delicate fingers, and tell me of those baths you had by the fire. The ones you didn't know to appreciate.” 

Vanessa followed the Cut-Wife up to the loft where she slept. It was warmer under than eaves than in the main room: summer heat lingered up here. It would be terribly cold in winter. 

The Cut-Wife undressed immediately, without shame, throwing rough chemise on the floor. She spread herself carefully on the bed, face down. If Vanessa thought about it, she was aware of the places where the Cut-Wife's body hurt, the pain flickering orange and white under her papery skin. 

Vanessa knelt next to her. 

Her touch, her palms circling the shoulder-blades, the spine, was gentle at first, fearful of causing hurt. The Cut-Wife sniffed and demanded firmer strokes. 

“I want to feel the summer heat in your veins,” she said. “The heat you hold inside.” 

Vanessa didn't know exactly what that meant, but she bent closer to the old woman's body, her hands firmer. She had done this before, for Mina, but it had been different, her touch delicate as a butterfly's when it lights on a flower, her breath quick in her chest. How she had longed for Mina, the smell of her, her creamy limbs. She had not known quite what she craved, but she craved it so deeply she wanted to bite Mina, to mingle their blood. 

With the Cut-Wife, she felt no such agony of longing. She earnestly desired to help, and there was something compelling, soothing almost, about touching another person, the intimacy of skin. She felt like the Cut-Wife's body mirrored her own, that they were almost the same person, separated by time and circumstance. 

She circled the woman's lower back, the skinny thighs. She felt the stiffness in the hips soften a little, the seized muscles begin to loosen. Her thumbs circled the thin buttocks. The Cut-Wife gave a little breathy sigh, a tender sound Vanessa had never heard her make before. 

The Cut-Wife coughed, as though embarrassed. “You think I'm too old to respond to pretty girl's touch? You don't get too old for that.” She paused, and then spat, “You'll learn. We all grow weak in the end.” 

“I doubt I will,” Vanessa said. 

A silence, then. A weight of grief, of spider-webs and fire. 

“Hmm.” The Cut-Wife sighed. “Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we are both near our end. I'm closer, though.” 

Vanessa resumed her massage, moving up the Cut-Wife's body. She could feel, then, the Cut-Wife's loneliness, her skin aching for affection. “Do you want me to...” she swallowed, almost choking on her words. “To touch you?” 

“Isn't that what you're doing?” 

Vanessa wished she hadn't spoken. For a moment, the image of lying between the Cut-Wife's thighs filled her. A gift, her mouth and fingers, another gift she could give her. “I mean...” her tongue clicked against her teeth. 

“My cunt, you mean? Get me off, you mean?” 

“Yes,” Vanessa said, hand on the Cut-Wife's scrawny buttock. “Yes.” 

A long pause. Vanessa could feel a heat of shame rising from her belly to her brow. Was this a question sent to her by the devil? What kind of woman would ask such a thing? 

“Why not?” The old woman snorted. “Long time since I've had an offer like that. Won't get one again.” 

She rolled onto her back. The sky was growing lighter: Vanessa could see her a little more clearly now. The outline of her face, shape of her nose and lips. Her small dugs, the curve of her belly, the sparse hairs of her mound. She was not beautiful: she was simply human. Soft, warm, alive. She looked fragile, suddenly, and Vanessa felt a surge of tenderness, of love, as she dipped her head. 

She wanted to caress the skin, to make the old woman feel adored by Vanessa's mouth, her skin, her fingers. She wanted the Cut-Wife to drink in each touch and feel whole, young. But the Cut-Wife swatted at Vanessa like she was a midge or a horsefly and said, “Get on with it, for heaven's sake. I'm not some cowering virgin.” 

Vanessa eased the Cut-Wife's thighs apart, and bent to her vulva, touching the folds of skin with her mouth and nose. The Cut-Wife didn't smell very strongly, not the sharp, heady musk Vanessa associated with her own genitals, and she wasn't very wet, but she responded to Vanessa's breath, sighing and spreading her legs further. 

Her tongue tasted the labia, the soft folds, traced the clitoral hood. Vanessa found herself thinking of the Cut-Wife's life, all she had been and done, the times before this when she had been loved. When she had fucked other people, and been fucked. Sex had been ugly to Vanessa for a long time, something animal and shameful, but as she bent to the Cut-Wife's cunt, this seemed only tender. She found affection here, acceptance. 

She licked slowly, careful and precise. The old woman gave her instructions from time to time: not too hard, right there, a little to the left. Vanessa responded intuitively, sensing how the Cut-Wife's body was feeling. She could almost feel the touch in her own body, a strange echoing.

The Cut-Wife's breath rasped, quickened, hot and fast.

Then, as Vanessa licked harder, her jaw beginning to ache, her eyes water, the Cut-Wife pushed her away. “Enough, now,” she said. “Enough.” 

Vanessa sat back on her heels. She could feel the heat within the Cut-Wife's cunt, pooling and full. The arousal had built but not spilled over. “But you didn't...” 

“I know. That's all right. Come here, girl.” 

She opened her arms to Vanessa, and Vanessa, surprised, curled up beside her. She slotted herself against the Cut-Wife's neck, her arm resting below her breasts. She smelt her soft skin, thyme and vinegar, and felt the quick patter of her heartbeat. Vanessa wanted to take her own chemise off, but couldn't bear to move, afraid to break the spell of skin. 

“All right,” the old woman said again. “We're here, aren't we, girl?” She kissed Vanessa's forehead, soft as a moth. “We're here.” 

Vanessa lay still, listening to her breathe. Gradually, the room grew brighter, and the breaths turned to snores. 

*

She lay for a long time with her face pressed to the Cut-Wife's back, the ridges of the scar against her cheek. She listened to the steady snores. Then she got up gingerly, careful not to disturb her, and dressed in an old jersey with moth-holes in the sleeves. 

Outside, the dew was still on the grass. Birds sang; it was still too cool for insects to fly. On the calm air, she could smell knapweed and devil's-bit scabious. The moorland no longer seemed bleak: she knew its ridges and tussocks, the places where hares slept, where orchids grew. It was a place of silence and desolation, but also of solace. 

She walked to the thin, clear stream which flowed past the cottage and down to the river. She refreshed her face in the water, so cold her ears ached. Then she knelt on the dark earth, listening. 

In her dreams, she smelt ash, and she felt the Cut-Wife's body breaking under thin skin. There was no comfort anywhere. Yet in the early morning, it was hard to believe destruction could be born from a world so full of beauty.


End file.
